by Ted Davis

Also Known As: Kean, ou Désordre et génie

Directed by: Alexandre Volkoff

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: In the England of the early 1800s, Edmund Kean (Ivan Mosjoukine) is widely praised as the country’s foremost Shakespearean actor, but his scandalous and turbulent private life may lead to his professional and personal ruin.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): During an extended drunken debauch at The Coaly Hole tavern, Kean, transparently disguised as a sailor, forms a group dance with other revelers, which grows more and more frenzied and intense until the moment when he succumbs to a hallucinogenic fit, imagining that his unattainable true love, la contessa Elena de Koefeld (Nathalie Lissenko), is horseback riding with the Prince of Wales (Otto Detlefsen), his perceived rival. At one point in the dance, a young black cat arches his back, then wisely attempts to escape the most irritating aspects of this tiresome and noisome folderol by the simple expedient of jumping from one ledge to a higher one.

Final Mewsings: It’s extremely understandable that cats don’t have much patience with self-destructive, over-emotional actors on a binge.

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